Oh, my Beautiful! Oh, my Good! <br />Hideous fanfare where yet I do not stumble! <br />Oh, rack of enchantments! <br />For the first time, hurrah for the unheard-of work, <br />For the marvelous body! For the first time! <br />It began with the laughter of children, and there it will end. <br />This poison will stay in our veins even when, as the fanfares depart, <br />We return to our former disharmony. <br />Oh, now, we who are so worthy of these tortures! <br />Let us re-create ourselves after that superhuman promise <br />Made to our souls and our bodies at their creation: <br />That promise, that madness! <br />Elegance, silence, violence! <br />They promised to bury in shadows the tree of good and evil, <br />To banish tyrannical honesty, <br />So that we might flourish in our very pure love. <br />It began with a certain disgust, and it ended - <br />Since we could not immediately seize upon eternity - <br />It ended in a scattering of perfumes. <br />Laughter of children, discretion of slaves, austerity of virgins, <br />Horror of faces and objects here below, <br />Be sacred in the memory of the evening past. <br />It began in utter boorishness, and now it ends <br />In angels of fire and ice. <br />Little drunken vigil, blessed! <br />If only for the mask you have left us! <br />Method, we believe in you! We never forgot that yesterday <br />You glorified all of our ages. <br />We have faith in poison. <br />We will give our lives completely, every day. <br />FOR THIS IS THE ASSASSIN'S HOUR. <br /> <br /> <br />(translated by Paul Schmidt)<br /><br />Arthur Rimbaud<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/drunken-morning/
